.K5£ _— — ^— .^— — 
^UNION LEAGUE CLUB 



NEW YORK. 



^ ^7~^^ry^^^ ^/ 




PHOCEEDINaS 

IN REFERENCE TO THE DEATH 

OF 

HON. JOHN A. KING, 

JULY llTH, 1867. 



CLUB HOUSE, UNION SQUARE, 
No. 29 East Seventeenth Street. 

1 8 fi 7 . 







Eltz 



GIass_ 

Book -K sa. 



ONION LEAGUE CLUB 



NEW YORK, 
n 






F» R O C E E D I IS^ a S 

IN KEFEllENCE TO THE DEATH 

OF 

HON. JOtIN A. KING, 

JULY llTH, 1867. 



CLUB HOUSE, UNION SQUARE, 

No. 29 East Seventeenth Street. 

1867. 



h/ZS 



TRIBUTE 



Hon. JOHN A. KING 



At a meeting of the Union League Club, held at the 
Club House in Union Square, on the evening of July 
11th, 1867, the President, Mr. John Jay, in the Chair, 
the following resolutions, prepared by Mr. Henry T. 
TucKERMAN, Were offered by Mr. Fkedekic Prime : 

Whereas, Ex-Governor John A. King, of Jamaica, L. I., was 
stricken down on the Fourth of Julv, while in the act of giving 
expression to the patriotic principles and the noble syrai:)athies 
characteristic of the man and the citizen, and on the following 
Sunday expired, full of years and of honors ; and 

Whereas, He was one of the earliest members and most devoted 
friends of this Club ; therefore 

Resolved, That in the death of John Alsop King we have met 
with a national bereavement, his example and character being of 
the highest order of civic virtue and republican consistency. 

Resolved, That his prompt and brave protest against the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law, while a member of Congress, his faithful and intel- 
ligent discharge of his duties as a State Legislator, a Governor of 
New York, and a National Representative, his eminent courtesy 



4 TRIBUTE TO THE 

and rectitude in private life, and his kindness and geniality in 
domestic and social relations, endear his memory, and add new 
lustre to the patriotic record of his family. 

Resolved, That his efforts to save the countrj- from the horrors 
of civil war, as a member of the Peace Convention of 1861, his 
earnest loyalty to the Union when war became inevitable, and the 
influeuce he constantly exerted in behalf of the national cause at 
the most critical period of our history, render complete and har- 
monious his long, honorable, and patriotic career, and entitle his 
name and memory to our grateful and affectionate respect. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the family 
of the deceased. 

In presenting the resolutions, Mr. Pkime said that it 
had been his privilege to enjoy during many years 
a considerable intimacy with Governor King, and it 
afforded him a melancholy satisfaction to testify to the 
private vu'tues of one who throughout life had main- 
tained with simplicity and dignity the character of an 
American gentleman. Compelled in his youth, through 
restricted means, to till with his own hands his little 
farm on Long Island, he never allowed the amenity of 
manners, which was one of the most pleasing features 
of his character, to become blunted by such rough 
experiences. The young man who, as a boy at Harrow 
school, had sat at the same form with Byron and Peel, 
felt it no disgrace to pursue an avocation which in pop- 
ular estimation may not have seemed compatible with 
his education or social position ; but by his cheerful 
submission to circumstances lent dignity to his humble 
labors. The speaker had in his youth seen " Gentle- 
man George" at Ascot Heath in England, tricked out 
with all the finery which Bnimmell's taste and the 



HON. JOHN A. KINO. 



tailor's skill could supply, and surrounded with that 
halo of royalty in which even the meanest nature must 
assume some of the attributes of greatness ; and yet, 
he declared, plain John A. King, coming in from his 
daily labor, with the sweat of honest toil upon his 
brow, was incomparably the greater, if not the finer, 
gentleman of the two. 

After briefly sketching Governor King's family his- 
tory, he alluded to his political career, which, if less 
distmguished than that of his honored father, Eufus 
King, of whom he was the eldest sou, was marked by 
high probity, consistency, and courage. For many 
years of his Hfe a member of a party hopelessly in the 
mmority, he never condescended to become a faction- 
ist, or to oppose for the sake of opposition merely. He 
contended for truth and principle, not victory, and knew 
better than most men how to sustain an unwelcome po- 
sition with patience, moderation, and magnanimity. 
Born in 1788, contemporaneously with the birth of our 
Constitution, of which his father was one of the chief 
h-amers, John A. King lived to see that instrument sur- 
vive every attack which political chicanery or audacity, 
or open-mouthed treason could direct against it ; and 
to him, also, was accorded the rare good fortune to see 
the States which that Constitution formed into a Union, 
pass through the furnace of civil strife, and become 
welded into a mighty nation, more respected, more 
feared, and of far grander domain than its foimders ever 
dreamed of creating. 

Mr. Prime was followed by Mr. Chaeles P. Kirklaub, 
who spoke as follows : 



6 TRIBUTE TO THE 

A personal acquaintance witli IMr. King of more than 
thirty years justifies me in saying a few words on this 
occasion, and in adding my humble but earnest tribute 
of regard to his memory. We were both members of 
the Harrisburg Convention of 1839, which nominated 
General Harrison for the Presidency, each of us repre- 
senting a district of this State ; and I deem this a fitting 
opportunity to declare that, as a member of that body, 
our departed fiiend exhibited the elevated and pure 
patriotism for wliich, perhaps more than for any other 
quality, he has been distinguished through hfe. He, 
with a large majority of his fellow-members, came to 
the Convention with a strong personal preference for 
Henry Clay as the candidate of the party ; and Mr. 
King, in addition, represented a district which was 
warmly in favor of that eminent statesman, and which 
had emphatically expressed to him its preference. 
But after three days of anxious and fi'iendly consulta- 
tion among the members (every Congressional District 
in the Union being represented), the deliberate conclu- 
sion, though reluctantly arrived at, was, that under the 
existing circumstances the nomination of Mr. Clay 
would result in defeat. It was deemed of vital import- 
ance to the great interests of the nation, that the Whig 
party should succeed in that canvass; and therefore that 
personal feelings and preferences should be yielded to 
the country. Accordingly, the fi'ieuds of Mr. Clay, in- 
cluding Mr. King, with a patriotism rarely witnessed, 
made the required sacrifice, and General Harrison was 
nominated. I am induced now thus publicly to men- 
tion these facts, because no longer ago than yesterday 
a most worthy member of the Union party stated, in 



HON. JOHN A. KING. 



my bearing, that Mr. King, at that Convention, faltered 
in his duty, and disregarded the wishes, if not the in- 
structions, of his immediate constituents. I am glad 
of this opportunity of doing justice to his memory in 
this particular, and of declaring that his conduct in 
that Convention was marked by high moral coui-age, 
and by a spirit of unselfish patriotism. He acted then, 
as he never failed to act in all his pubhc transactions, 
without regard to personal consequences, and with sole 
reference to what he deemed the true interests of the 
repubhc. 

Indeed, in the severe and bitter party contests in 
which, in various periods of his career, he was called 
upon to participate, I do not believe that, however his 
views may have been dissented from, any man of any 
party ever questioned his purity or his patriotism. 

In the numerous important official stations he has 
filled, he has never on any occasion been known to 
have acted, or been suspected of acting, under the 
influence of any mercenary or unworthy motive, or of 
seeking to advance his personal interests any further 
than they would be advanced by an honest and honor- 
able discharge of public duty. Had his pure spirit 
pervaded our legislative halls for the last few years, 
this club would never have been required, in the per- 
formance of what it deemed its duty, to send its re- 
monstrances and its memorials to the capitol of our 
State. 

Mr. King, by birth, education, and fortune, belonged 
to our aristocracy, if indeed such a thing as aristocracy 
can exist among us of the North, but his heart and his 
sympathies were always with the people and with 



8 TRIB UTE TO THE 

liberty ; and never for a moment did lie have a feeling 
in common wdth the imperious, overbearing, and selfish 
slave aristocracy of the South. While in Congress, he 
incurred their dislike by his bold and manly attacks on 
their cherished institution ; and as a member of the 
" Peace Congress " of February, 1861, he avowed his 
deep and enduring enmity to slavery and to the slave- 
power, which had for half a century exercised so great 
and so deleterious an influence in the national Govern- 
ment. 

In private life, among his associates, he was invaria- 
bly the accompHshed gentleman, the genial friend, and 
the loved companion, while to all who had not his 
advantages of education and social position, his de- 
meanor was uniformly characterized by courtesy, 
benevolence, and gentle kindness. His fmieral, which 
I attended yesterday, was an occasion of deep and 
solemn interest ; the multitudes who crowded to it fi'om 
the village of his residence and from the surrounding 
country, testified the heartfelt sorrow and affection of 
those among whom he had lived for more than a 
quarter of a century : as one of them said to me, ex- 
pressing the universal feeHng, " He has been a father 
to us." 

We may feel a just pride that he was one of the 
fomiders of this club, and that he had continued in full 
and hearty communion and sympathy with us. No 
member of the club was more enthusiastic in approval 
and admiration of our work in raising and sending to 
the field our negro regiments in the gloomiest period 
of the War of the RebelHon. 

He was vouchsafed a long life, and one uncommonly 



HON. JOHN A. KING. 9 

free from bodily disease ; indeed, up to the lioiir of the 
attack wliicli so soon ended in death, he was in excellent 
mental and physical health. His last pubhc appear- 
ance was on the late anniversary of our nation's birth- 
day, and, by a beautiful coincidence, his last words 
were addi-essed, on that occasion, to the yoimg men of 
his vicinity ; and they were emphatically the words of 
a patriot and a Christian. 

He has departed as full of years as of honors, and has 
left to us who sur\ive the invaluable legacy of his ex- 
ample. Let us study to follow it, and thus pay the 
best and a continuing tribute to his memory. 

Mr. Isaac H. Bailey spoke as follows : 

Mr. President : It is a gTateful task to streAv flowers 
upon the grave of a man whose life has been one long 
career of pm-ity, mauHness, and usefril service to his 
kind. Eulogies upon the dead are worse than valueless 
if they are not tmthfril ; but what words in praise of 
John A. King could be woven into a panegyric that 
would exceed the measure of his great worth ? He was, 
2Mr excellence, a gentleman— of the old school, so called 
— of great personal dignity, of courtly bearing, of com- 
manding presence ; but with his dignified address there 
was blended so much geniality and kindness of heart 
that, while he commanded the respect, he also won the 
love of all who knew him. 

He beheved in hlood ; and if that was a weakness, it 
was ha his case a pardonable one, for in his veins flowed 
the blood of an American patriot and statesman of 
noble fame, and it did not degenerate in its transmission 



10 TRIBUTE TO THE 

to his sons, all of whom have reflected honor upon their 
heritage. 

But while Mr. King belonged, by bhth, education, 
and sympathy, to the aristocratic element of society, 
he was a life-long and consistent advocate of human 
rights. He espoused the doctrine of the equality of 
man before the law, while it was too generally re- 
garded as a " gHttering generahty " rather than as the 
corner stone of our repubHcan system. 

He was an early, steadfast, and determined opponent 
of slavery and every form of oppression. In this 
respect he was a Democrat in the best sense of the 
term. He had no sympathy with that spurious democ- 
racy which vented itself in wordy professions of devo- 
tion to the welfare of the people, but denied not merely 
justice but even common humanity to millions of them 
because of a mere accident of complexion. Beautiful 
as was the character of Mr. King in all respects, it is 
from this point of view especially that I love to con- 
template it. He seems to me to have realized the 
highest ideal of citizenship in a republic, and to have 
had that sublime faith in man on wdiich rests the hopes 
of the world's future. No pride of lineage withheld his 
sympathies from his fellow men, no surroundings of 
wealth and luxury deafened his ear to the plea of the 
humblest of his kind. His public life was marked by 
a strict adherence to the principles of justice, his pri- 
vate walk was one of generous philanthropy and mod- 
est benevolence. He illustrated in his own person the 
sovereignty that inheres in the individual man — the 
peer of all his race — reared under a government of the 
People, where privileged orders are unrecognized and 
caste is unknown. 



HON. JOHN A. KING. H 

His life was prolonged far beyond tlie period allotted 
to mortality, as if a benignant Providence willed that 
he should witness the fruition of his labors for fi'eedom 
in the purification of his beloved country from that 
hideous stain which made its professions of love for 
liberty a mockery. He lived, too, to see the lowly race 
he had befriended endowed Avith civil rights, and enter- 
ing, under the sanction of national authority, upon all 
the privileges and responsibilities pertaining to equal 
citizenship in a reconstyntcted and regenerated Union. 

The Hon. C. H. Peabody said : 

Mr. President : At this late hour of the evening, 
and after the pleasing remarks that have been 
made, it will not become me to detain you and 
this audience by protracted comment upon a sub- 
ject even so worthy of extended consideration 
as the life and character presented by the resolu- 
tions before us. I am not willing, however, sir, to 
allow the occasion to pass without adding a word to 
what has been already so well said by the gentlemen 
who have preceded me. Mr. King, whose death we 
lament, has gone, full of years and honors, to be gath- 
ered to liis fathers. We knew him as a brother 
member of our body, and as a gentleman of much 
general culture, of elevated moral tone and sentiment, 
of great pmdty and integrity of character, and of 
genial temper and manners. Born in the best circle of 
society, he was blessed in early life with the most 
favorable cu'cumstances of niu'ture and education. The 
world, therefore, had a right to expect of him many of 



12 TRIBUTE TO THE 

the -sTi'tues which all agree that he possessed in an 
eminent degree, and he has, in those respects, fulfilled 
all that could reasonably be expected from opportuni- 
ties of a high order, well improved in practice. Spring- 
ing, as he did, from a family occupying the best position 
in the community, his life has been altogether credit- 
able to his origin. He would have been recreant to 
duty if he had failed to take a place, in reference to 
circumstances dependent upon that fact, like the one 
he did take and occupied through his long and useful 
Hfe. The characteristic which, under these circum- 
stances, was most attractive, was one which, unhappily 
for the world, is not always the concomitant of elevated 
birth and breeding, or of the most finished education. 
Those circumstances do not insure, and, in the minds 
of many, are supposed not necessarily to contribute or 
tend to, a general philanthrop}', a catholic comprehen- 
siveness of s^Tnpathy and benevolence in practical 
life. It is often supposed that circumstances like 
these tend, by elevating the individual above the 
many, to remove him, in some measure, fi'om a 
regard for and interest in them ; and certain it 
is that instances are not few or of infi-equent 
occurrence which seem to lend color to this theory. 
But no such consequences were allowed to follow 
in the case of our deceased friend. The circum- 
stances to which I have alluded were not allowed 
to create a distance between him and his fellow-man, 
however situated in life. With aU the virtues so justly 
attributed to him in the remarks already made, admit- 
ted to be his, nothing in his character strikes me with 
more force than his broad and genial sympathy with 



HON. JOHN A. KING, 13 

humanity. He was eminently a man of comprehen- 
sive benevolence and unfeigned interest in his fellow- 
man. The humble and lowly found in him a fiiend 
always studious of their welfare and anxious for their 
advancement. The tribute paid to him by a humble 
neighbor, and alluded to by one of the speakers a few 
moments since, seems to me to suggest a trait in his 
character not less attractive or less deserving of notice 
than any other that has been alluded to. That neigh- 
bor, a plaui and lowly man, said of him as he followed 
him mournfully to the grave : " The Governor was a 
father to me. He was always ready to aid me by his 
counsel and encouragement, and I can never cease to 
recollect my obligations to him." 

This kind of practical benevolence, Mr. President, 
to the unpretending and lowly around him, is evidence 
of the intrinsic goodness of heart to which I would 
specially dh-ect attention, and which, to my milid, is 
the most meritorious and amiable trait, and the one on 
which, on this occasion, we may with most propriety 
and benefit remark. It gives me more pleasure, sir, to, 
be able to say of him, " He loved and sympathized 
with mankind generally, including those farthest re- 
moved from him by the circumstances of birth, educa- 
tion, and social position, and loved to comfort and en- 
courage them, and support and cheer them on in their 
efforts and anxieties in life," than to dwell on those 
other traits more naturally flowing from the elevated 
station in which he was placed ; and these, sir, are es- 
pecially the traits on which we delight to dwell in con- 
templating his character now that he has passed fi'om 
the scenes of time and entered upon those of another 



14 TRIBUTE TO THE 

life. How liappy for us who respected and loved liim, 
and how much more so for those more nearly allied by 
ties of family and kindred, that the long life whose 
termination we deplore has furnished abundance of 
matter for contemplation of this kind. 

Mr. James Kelly spoke as follows : 

Mr. President : I cannot permit this occasion to pass 
without adding a slight token of respect to the memory 
of so good a man as the Hon. John A. King. My ac- 
quaintance with him was chiefly political. In 1849 I 
first met that distinguished citizen in Syracuse, attend- 
ing a Whig State Convention. In a preliminary meet- 
ing, held m the attic of the Syracuse House, the night 
before the meeting of the convention, and quite fully 
attended, I had taken ground in favor of some of the 
State officers being selected from the southern tier of 
counties. This aroused the opposition of many lead- 
ing Whigs from the canal counties, and a full discus- 
sion took place. John A. King arose and took the side 
of the minority, and with his commanding influence, 
and the ingenuity displayed in his appeal to the dele- 
gates, the minority at this meeting was found to be in 
the majority when the convention met the next day. 

In 1855, when the Whig party met in State Conven- 
tion on the same day with the Free Soil Democrats, 
but in a difi'erent hall, John A. King being Chairman of 
the Whig Convention, and Judge Smith Chairman of 
the Democratic Convention, a joint meeting was pro- 
posed and agreed upon ; and I well remember Gov- 
ernor King's proposing Judge Smith for presiding offi- 



HON. JOHN A. KING. 15 

cer of the joint convention. To Judge Smith's credit, 
be it said, he arose, thanked the convention for re- 
sponding to the proposal, but stated it was more fitting 
that he should name John A. King to wed the old 
Whig party to the Free Soil Democrats. Then it was 
that such men as Preston King, Martin Grover, Thui'- 
low Weed, and Horace Greeley, jomed hands in the 
good cause of freedom for all mankmd, and from that 
time forward the Kepublican party became a mighty 
power in the land. 

I subsequently met Mr. King at various other State 
and National Conventions, notably at Philadelphia 
in 1856, and Chicago in 1860, and no man could 
have been more earnest in the performance of 
the important duties confided to him. Again I met 
him in the autumn of 1860, in the electoral college 
of New York, with Bryant, Wadsworth, and others. 
Gov. King suggested Wadsworth for president of the 
college, who decUned and nominated Bryant, who 
also dechned. It was plain to me tliis high-minded 
man, John A. King, was not thinking of self; the 
noble and generous elements in his nature always 
predominated. With the consent of Messrs. Wads- 
worth and Bryant, I nominated him for this honorable 
position, and he was unanimously chosen president of 
the college. Gov. King's high tone and principle enno- 
bled politics, and his course throughout a long and 
useful life gives om- young men an example they may 
well follow. I deem it an honor to have be«n associ- 
ated with such a man, and regret that I cannot express 
how deeply and sincerely I feel his loss. 



]6 TRIBVTE TO THE 

The Hon. E, P. Cowles said : 

Mr. President : At the hazard of being somewhat 
tedious after the several eloquent tributes to the mem- 
ory of our deceased friend and brother, to which we 
have hstened with so much interest, I wiU nevei'theless 
beg your indulgence for a few moments, while I call 
attention to a single incident, indicating and illustrat- 
ing his pohtical opinions and action, which occurred 
on an interesting occasion in the history of the country, 
and under my own personal observation. 

It was my fortune, sir, to be a member, as a dele- 
gate from this State, of the last National Convention 
which was ever held by the old time-honored Whig 
party. That convention assembled in Baltimore, in 
June, 1852, and its object was the nomination of can- 
didates for President and Vice-President of the United 
States in the coming election. 

With the close of the dehberations of that convention, 
and the election thereafter ensuing, ended the career 
of that great party. From that pohtical death, great 
and momentous consequences followed. You "wdll re- 
member, sir, that on the occasion of that convention 
there were before it for nomination for the Presidency, 
three candidates. They were Millard Fillmore, Daniel 
Webster, and General Scott. Throughout the proceed- 
ings of that convention the main contest among its 
members — the question of all others which influ- 
enced its action — was on the principles which should 
be assumed in its declared platform upon the question 
of slavery. Almost the entire delegation from New 
York, with a large majority of the delegations from the 



HON. JOHN A. KING. 



17 



other Northern States, resolved to resist all attempts 
to commit the Whig party, in fact or by imphcation, 
to any dogma of a jDro-slavery character or tendency. 

The deliberations of the convention were long and 
anxious, and the feeling of its members mtense. The 
South was ably represented by representative men. 
She had sent there delegates of long experience in 
public life, men of great intellect, of strong convic- 
tions, and of stronger rule— men detennined to commit 
the Whig party to Southern views upon that (to 
them) one absorbing question of slavery. There were 
present there the imperious and self-willed Toombs, 
the cool, wily, and astute Jones, of Tennessee, and 
many others, with national reputations, able in debate, 
and of large parliamentary experience. On the other 
hand, there were also there equally able men of the 
North (among whom I may name Dayton, of New Jer- 
sey, Evans, of Maine, and the then youthful Sherman, 
of Ohio), sturdy lovers of fi-eedom, equally deter- 
mined that the Whig party, as a national poUtical or- 
ganization, should not bear a pro-«Glavery stamp. The 
Southern delegations, with great unanimity, supported 
Mr. Fillmore. The delegations of the North generally, 
though not with equal mianimity, supported General 
Scott. Some thirty delegates from both sections of the 
country, holding the balance of power, supported Mr. 
Webster. 

In the long contest over the resolutions of the con- 
vention, which preceded the nominations, and in the 
anxiety to secure votes for then favorite, and affected 
probably by the earnestness with which Southern men 
urged their views, some of the Northern delegations 



18 TRIBUTE TO THE 

failed to exhibit their early earnestness in support of 
the general];/ accepted Northern views on the question 
of the platform. Throughout the contest, however, all 
but six or seven of the New York delegation, among 
the majority of which were Granger, of Onondaga, and 
Draper, and Talcott, and Raymond, stood firmly to the 
very last with the majority from Ohio and New Jersey, 
and with portions of other delegations, in resistance to 
the platform of principles demanded by the South. 

You can well imagine, sir, in the presence of these 
facts, that the conferences of om" Northern friends dur- 
ing that long and eventful week — a week of depressing 
sultriness and heat, w^ere constant and anxious ; and how 
at times there might be Gome who would be prone to 
inquire w^hether our New York delegation should not 
compromise on the platform, rather than remain a unit 
to the end upon the ground it had assumed, to the 
peril of our favorite nominee. It was here that the 
particular chcumstances occurred to which I desh-ed 
to call your attention. Our deceased fiiend was often 
present at those conferences — occurring during the 
recess of the convention ; and Avhenever indications of 
doubt or faltering were exhibited, I well remember 
how the strong v/ill, and courteous but firm and cheer- 
inor words of John A. King, tended to reassm-e the 
faltering, and confirm the doubting. His constant ad- 
vice was, no wavering, no compromise — better pohtical 
defeat than either. Through his personal influence as 
much, if not more, as I believe, than through that of 
any other one man, the unity of the large majority of 
the New York delegation was preserved. And it is 
my pride and pleasure now to recur to that unbroken 



HON. JOHN A. KING. 19 

vote, during the three days' discussion upon the reso- 
kitions, and to the subsequent three days' balloting:?, 
with the fifty-seven ballots successively thrown for one 
candidate, General Scott, before his nomination was 
secured. Not one of those delegates faltered on a 
single vote throughout, either upon the question of the 
platform or the candidate. 

The effect, sir, of that long and earnest struggle 
between the Northern and Southern elements of the 
Whig party, not alone upon the destinies of that party, 
but upon the future of the nation, has been but 
partially appreciated. Out of it, not intentionally 
perhaps — certainly not entu'ely foreseen by the active 
participants in that convention — but as a necessity and 
natural sequence, grew that subsequent political organ- 
ization which has ulthnately earned with it the down- 
fall of slavery in these United States. 

The Northern and Southern wings of the old Whig 
party were at irreconcilable differences on the one sub- 
ject of slavery. The South in that convention triumphed 
in the platform, the North in the candidate. All un- 
derstood, however, the inherent disagreement, and that 
this disagreement must be perpetual. The North de- 
rided the platform. The South deserted the candidate. 
As a consequence, the sun of the succeedmg day of 
election went down upon one of the greatest political 
defeats which the country had ever witnessed. The 
necessary and inevitable result was the dissolution of 
the Whig party as a poKtical organization, and from 
the ashes of its Northern wing, the resurrection, in 
the Eepublican party, of a new and more loftily in- 
spired pohtical aggregation, based upon resistance to 



20 TRIBUTE TO THE 

tlie further extension of slavery, and its denationaliza- 
tion as a controlling power in our national politics. 
The successful assumption of that ground by that 
party was made the occasion of war, and out of war 
sprang freedom. 

I do not intend to be understood as impl^dng, that 
none but members of the old Whig party were em- 
braced in the Kepublican ranks on the first formation 
of that party — for such was not the fact ; much less to 
assert that all those who, in the Baltimore Convention 
of 1852, resisted the demands of then- Southern fi-iends, 
intended or foresaw the vast pubhc consequences 
which were to flow from their action ; but I do mean 
to say that the political dissolution of one of the then 
two gi-eat national parties was necessarily, in the des- 
tiny of events, to precede any extended or controlling 
organizations based ujion persistent antagonism to the 
slave power ; that to the determined resistance of that 
power in the Convention of 1852, is to be attributed 
the breaking up of the Whig party, and the merging 
of its almost entire Northern element in the Eepubhcau 
ranks ; and that no one man exerted, in my judgment, 
under a conscientious con"vdction of the right, a more 
potent personal influence, in combining and keeping 
up to the end that determined resistance in the Con- 
vention of 1852, fi'om which all those vast conse- 
quences to which I have alluded so largely flowed, 
than our deceased friend John A. King, to whose 
memory we are this evening paying the tribute of our 
deep respect. 



HON. JOHN A. KING. 21 

The Peesident spoke as follows : 

Before putting the question upon the resolutions, 
although it would seem unnecessary to add to the 
tribute which has been so justly and eloquently 
paid to the memory of our lamented associate, you 
will allow me, I trust, to say a few words, for you 
will appreciate my unwillingness to let this occasion 
pass without a brief expression of my warm apprecia- 
tion of the character and services of Governor King, 

He was one of the few men of high social position 
in New York whose sympathies and utterances during 
our long struggle against the unconstitutional encroach- 
ments of slavery, were uniformly on the side of free- 
dom ; and for this alone we should have felt for him an 
unusual degree of regard aud gratitude. Governor 
King's love of liberty was an hereditary sentiment. 
It had nought in common with the false idea of a de- 
generate democracy which limits freedom to the white 
race, granting them an unlimited area for slavery, and 
an unstinted power to buy and sell and flog and work 
then* black countrymen, but it was the true idea of 
equal liberty, without regard to nationahty or race or 
creed or color. 

Rufus King, in 1785, moved a resolution in the Con- 
tinental Congress, " that there be neither slavery nor in- 
voluntary servitude in any of the States described in the 
resolution of Congress of April, 1784, otherwise than 
in punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have 
been personally guilty ; and that this regulation shall 
be made an article of compact, and remain a fimda- 
mental principle of the Constitution between the origi- 



22 TRIBUTE TO THE 

nal States and each of the States named in said re- 
solve." 

Governor King lived to see that suggestion of his 
father, after more than eighty years, made an article of 
constitutional compact and fundamental principle, not 
only between the States then alluded to, but between 
all the States that now compose our continental re- 
pubhc. 

I had the opportunity, during many years, of being 
associated with Governor King. I often met him in the 
Diocesan Convention of the Episcopal Church, which, 
you remember, after a struggle of nine years, recog- 
nized, in the admission of the parish of St. Philip, 
the equal rights of their colored brethren, an ex- 
ample which the National Government has followed 
in recognizing the equal rights of our colored country- 
men at the South. Again, I was intimately associated 
with him in the progress of that gi'eat national move- 
ment which we inaugurated in this city on the 30th 
of January, 1854, at the meeting of citizens, without re- 
spect to party, to protest against the tlu'eatened repeal 
of the Missouri Compromise. That memorable gather- 
ing, at which New York gave tone and expression to the 
deep, loyal sentiment of the country, was followed by 
others of scarcely inferior importance, and resulted in 
the call of a State Convention at Saratoga on the fol- 
lowing August, and an invitation to citizens of other 
States to hold similar conventions, with a \iew to har- 
monious and united action. 

On the assembling of the enthusiastic and determined 
multitude who met at Saratoga, Governor King was 
appointed temporary chairman, and by that body was 



Hox. jonx A. Kixa. 23 

put forth a declaration of those govermental j)rinciples 
which have since been so gloriously vindicated by the 
American people. The Saratoga Convention declining 
to make nominations of its own, adjoiu-ned to meet at 
Auburn the following month, to nominate the candi- 
dates of the other parties who should be fully committed 
to their views ; and when they met again at Syracuse 
on the 27th September, 1855, the "Whig Convention, 
which had met there on the same day, formally dis- 
solved, and joined the ranks of the Eepublicans ; so 
that to Governor King belonged the honor of being- 
one of the fathers of that Repubhcan party which 
saved our country from the disintegration to which it 
had been devoted by the slave power of the South, 
aided and abetted by Democratic leaders at the North, 
and by an unfi-iendly aristocracy in Europe. 

Governor King maintained with earnest enthusiasm 
and power the Republican principles of Nationahty 
and Freedom which a pseudo Democracy had fought 
to emasculate and dwarf by that pitiful theory of 
petty sovereignties which strikes at the heart of the 
Constitution, denying the sovereignty of the American 
people — denying the fact of their nationality, and leav- 
ing no place for national pride or national affection. 

In the so-caUed Peace Convention held at Washing- 
ton, amid the first convulsions of the rebellion. Govern- 
or King spoke but twice, and then briefly ; but his 
plain words and manly dignity, with those of his asso- 
ciates, General "Wadsworth and William Curtis Noyes, 
whom he has now rejoined in a better world, vindicated 
the sovereignty of the Constitution and the loyalty of 
New York ; and though on the great question before 



24 TRIBUTE TO THE 

the Convention the vote of our State was lost, their 
testimony and example relieve the darkness of that 
unpleasant page in our history. 

The insolent and domineering tone assumed by men 
prepared to rash into rebellion, was repelled by Gov- 
ernor King with a spirit that was in strong contrast to 
the servility exhibited by some of his associates. He 
said, in reply to W. Wyckliffe : 

" I am as old as the gentleman from Kentucky. 



" I recognize no right in him to lectiu'e me on my polit- 
" ical duties. I revere the Constitution of my country'. 
" I was educated to love it. My own father helped to 
" make it. I cannot sit still and hear such declarations 
" as have been hourly repeated here for the last few 
" days. * * The State of New York at all times, in 
" peace or war, has been loyal to the Constitution ; and 
" although some of her representatives here may un- 
" dertake to make you think differently, she always wiU 
" be : yes, loyal with all her strength and power ; and 
" as one of her representatives, I shall yield nothing on 
" her part to threats, menaces, or intimidations." 

When the resolution denying the right of secession 
was under discussion. Governor King said : 

" We do not intend to be driven fi*om oui' position 
" by threats or intimidation. We beheve that it is emi- 
" nently proper for the Conference to express its decided 
" convictions upon the question of secession. We are 
" told here that secession is a fact. Then let us deal 
" with it as such. I go for the endorsement of the 
" laws passed in pursuance of the Constitution. I will 



HON. JOHN A. KING. 25 

" never give up the idea that this is a government of 
" the people, and possessing within itself the power of 
" enforcing its own decrees. * * This Conference 
" conld perform no nobler act than that of sending to 
" the country the announcement that the Union of the 
" States under the Constitution is indissoluble, and that 
" secession is but another term for rebellion. * * I 
" wish to live in peace and harmony with oui* brethren 
" in the Slave States. But I wish to put upon the 
" record here, a statement of the fact that this govem- 
" ment is a government of the people, and not a com- 
" pact of States." 

Governor King hailed \di}i delight the early and 
stern resolve of this club to maintain that fimdamental 
doctrine of our nationality against the organized efforts 
of the partisan leaders in our midst, who, after the 
loudest professions of devotion to the Constitution and 
the Union, deserted the National Government when 
assailed by treachery and war, and who, in fm^therance 
of the rebellion, sought to separate the city from the 
State of New York, and in secret interviews with Lord 
Lyons invoked British intervention in our American 
affans. 

No man rejoiced more heartilj^ when, a few months 
after the murderous riots of July, 1863, we sent forth 
from this club-house our first colored regiment to 
assist in sa\ing the National Government, which the 
Peace Democracy were assisting to destroy ; and when, 
on that occasion, his generous-hearted and eloquent 
brother, Charles King, the late President of Columbia 
College, who is now, as we sadly fear, awaiting the last 



26 TRIBUTE TO THE HON. JOHN A. KING. 

summons iii a foreign land, gave to the black soldiers, 
on behalf of the club, a hearty greeting and an affec- 
tionate God-speed, no breast swelled with deeper 
emotion than that of our late associate. 

His well-spent life was singTilarly beautiful in its 
close. On the birthday of the country he had loved 
and served, while touchingly commending the care of 
its institutions and the culture of Christian princij)les 
to the younger generation that crowded lovingly about 
him, he received suddenly the announcement that his 
work was ended. 

His countrymen will cherish his memory. History 
will do honor to his name, and we who have known 
him so long and so weU, wdU affectionately recall the 
personal graces that lent to his wtues so bright a 
charm — the true heart, the kindly, earnest tone, the 
frank speech, the animated look, the open hand, the 
graceful courtesy — and, above all, the genial spirit 
which enabled him, on the verge of eighty years, to 
blend with the experience of venerable age the warm 
sympathies and buoyancy of youth. 

The question w^as then put by the President, and 
the Resolutions were unanimously adopted. 



L£ N '10 



f 



